Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF rankings are holding mostly steady; however, the continued fall in Consumer Discretionary against the other sector ETFs has suggested near-term weakness ahead for the markets – which has definitely played out since the minor top on June 21.

We began the month of June with the S&P 500 at 1089. Today, it closed at 1074, leaving just two more days to gain the lost ground and turn the month positive. The Summer Solstice on June 21 marked the high point for the month, with an intraday high of 1131 and its sights set on the 50-day moving average above. What a difference a week makes.

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

It is not uncommon to hear that nothing quite compares with the mad frenzy that is World Cup soccer. Nothing, perhaps, except for Wall Street, where degrees of both frenzy and madness can be as common as yellow cards dished out in the course of a fever-pitch match.

Although Sabrient’s SectorCast-ETF rankings have not changed dramatically, there are some definite signs of a more conservative bent evolving. And there seems to be good reason for it. After carefully scaling the proverbial wall of worry last week, this week saw the market lose the important technical support levels that it had fought so hard to reclaim.

Last week was a good week for the market from a technical standpoint, with the S&P 500 moving ahead about 2% and pushing through two important layers of resistance. It broke above its 200-day moving average, which had been providing stiff resistance for weeks, and also broke through even stronger resistance at the 1114 level.

Last week, British Petroleum’s press coverage got ramped up considerably, supplanting the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis as the focus of the financial press. Euro debt swapped out for oil slicks, in a manner of speaking.

The stock market is searching for direction, testing support and resistance levels each week. After threatening a waterfall decline last week, it instead found support and has rallied strongly. Today, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials joined the Nasdaq 100 and Russell 2000 by rising above the important 200-day moving average.

Since August 2009, with the exception of roughly nine weeks, the S&P 500 has stayed between strong support at 1040 and strong resistance at 1114, and it has been trapped in that range once again for the past month. Earlier today it was close again to testing resistance at 1114, but alas, it failed to break through and dropped back to 1089.

Here in Santa Barbara, where Sabrient is headquartered, "June Gloom" is that time of year when the marine layer and murky fog last until about noon every day before the sun finally burns its way through. The market seems to be enveloped in a similar gloom, and at this point we don't know when the sun might come out to chase it away.

We enter a new month this week mired in a persistent global malaise. The weekend increase in Israeli-Palestinian tension doesn’t help, nor does the continued inability of BP to deal with the largest oil spill in history. Economic news this morning was positive but without sufficient importance to do much more than soften the opening gap down.